The Pillars of Generalship

Maj John M. Vermillion

A review of the spate of literature on the operational level

of war published within the past two or three years suggests
that the Army (at least those officers writing on the subject)
is finally agreeing on how the term should be defined.
Working definitions of the concept generally argue that the
operational level of war encompasses the movement, support, and sequential employment of large military forces in
the conduct of military campaigns to accomplish goals
directed by theater strategy.1
Just as the Army has been able to perceive more clearly
what warfare at the operational level entails, so also has it
observed that the requirements of leadership at that level differ in some important respects from leadership at the tactical
level. Indeed, the term operational art implies that the commander at this echelon requires special talents. To identify
these special requirements should be a matter of high concern not only to those who aspire to command at the operational level, but also to all field-grade officers who might be
staff officers at operational-level headquarters.
If it is advisable, then, to learn about the unique demands
of leadership at the operational level, where does one look
for instruction? The ideal circumstance is to serve with a
latter-day Clausewitzian genius personally and directly.
Commanders with transcendent intellectual and creative
powers are rare, however, so to have a chance to observe a
genius personally is nearly impossible. A second way, open
to all, is through study of the sequence and tendencies of past
events and the key personalities who drove them. The present essay rests mainly on this method. As a matter of plain
fact, though, most US Army officers do not read military history with a critical eye. The majority of officers look for a
third way.
The Army has tried to provide just such a third way. In
Field Manual (FM) 22-999, Leadership and Command at
Senior Levels, Army leaders have provided guidance for leadership and command at the large-unit level in the context of
AirLand Battle as described in FM 100-5, Operations. Even

the most biting critics must applaud the hard work and serious
study that obviously underpin the new manual. Nonetheless,
the work suffers badly precisely because of its sheer exhaustiveness. Every significant utterance on leadership seems to
have found its way into the manual. It is full of lists, generally
in threes. For example, the reader learns that senior leaders
teach, train, and coach; that they must possess certain attributes, perspectives, and imperatives; and that they ought to possess three groups of skillsconceptual, competency, and
communications. Subdivisions of major headings also commonly occur in threes, as in three types of attributesstandard
bearer (read example), developer, and integrator.
By the time one finishes wading through endless alliterative lists of traits desirable in the operational-level commander, he has had drawn for him a commander with the
piety of Saint Paul, the intellect of Albert Einstein, and the
courage of Joan of Arc. In short, FM 22-999 lacks focus and
selective sense of what is fundamentally important. To say
everything is to say nothing. The purpose of this essay is to
draw sharper distinctions between the junior and senior levels of leadership and to offer a considered opinion about
what characteristics seem to be most essential to those commanders whom, in AirLand Battle, we associate with the
operational level of war.

On the Corporate Nature of Leadership

A false idea, namely that discussions about leadership
need take into account the leader only, has spread throughout the Army and slowly influenced at least a generation of
soldiers. The word leadership implies that a relationship
exists between the leader and something else. The something else, of course, is followers. By followers, however, I
am not speaking of the subordinate commanders or the men
in ranks. Entire books have been written on how various generals have inspired their troops to success in war. Rather, in
the present context, I am speaking of those followers who
comprise the generals staffthat immediate circle of assistants who act to translate the commanders operational will
into battlefield reality. Little first-class work has been done
to appraise the dynamics of leader-staff interaction. It is time
to examine the evidence regarding leadership in this sense
and then to hold the findings up to the bright light of common sense.
The exercise of generalship today carries with it tremendous difficulties. A division today is expected to cover a

Maj John Vermillion is G3 plans officer in the 24th Infantry

Division (Mechanized), Fort Stewart, Georgia. Holder of a bachelor
of science degree from the US Military Academy and masters
degrees from the University of South Carolina and Brown
University, he attended the regular course and the School of
Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth before taking up
his present assignment. Major Vermillion has had infantry assignments in Vietnam, Korea, and Germany.
_________
Reprinted with permission from Parameters, Summer 1987, 217.

43

clear, concise orders. As David Chandler notes, Bonaparte

owed much of his early success to the administrative talents
of Berthier.4
Only at the end, in 1815, did Berthiers worth to his
emperor become clear. On 1 June 1815, during the Waterloo
campaign, Berthier reportedly committed suicide, possibly
because of his inability to tolerate any longer the rebukes of
his commander. Napolon thereupon was forced to substitute Soult, an able corps commander. Almost immediately,
Soult was to be responsible for perpetuating several mistakes and misunderstandings in the written orders he issued,
and these, taken together, account for a great deal of
Napolons ultimate difficulties.5 At Waterloo, Napolon is
said to have cried out, If only Berthier was here, then my
orders would have been carried out.6
In analyzing the dynamics of the Napolon-Berthier relationship, it seems fair to suggest that Berthier was not flashingly quick. He was a man of deeply intelligent judgment
rather than of brilliance. He was capable of making
Napolons desire, if not vision, his own, of knowing how
the emperor wanted things to appear, then of being tough and
stubborn enough to make them turn out that way. He would
dutifully execute every directive concerning an operation,
but without adding a single idea of his own, or perhaps without comprehending the subtleties of the emperors thoughts.
Now, ponder how suitably Berthier met Napolons requirements. Napolon was a commander so knowledgeable and
so quick to focus his knowledge that even his apparently
spontaneous reactions often emerged as intricate and fully
developed ideas. That capacity can paralyze a staff. The
interesting work of creation was done for them, and tedium
does not stir the imagination. It is likely that many minds
sharper than Berthiers, not just Soults, would have failed
precisely because the temptation to bring their fertile imaginations to bear would have been irresistible.
During the 18071814 reorganization of the Prussian
Army, Gen Gerhard von Scharnhorst ordered reforms, many
effects of which are still evident today. A regulation issued
by Scharnhorst in 1810 was perhaps the most influential. He
made the chief of staff a full partner in command decisions.
By 1813 all Prussian commanding generals had chiefs of
staff with whom they were expected to form effective partnerships. One of the most famous and effective of these
teams was that of Gerhard von Blcher and his chief, Count
Neithardt von Gneisenau. They were effective because they
complemented each other perfectly. Whereas Blcher was a
brave, charismatic, but impatient man, Gneisenau was his
polar opposite: cool, methodical, yet courageous and determined.7 Gordon Craig here elaborates on the inspired collaboration of Blcher and Gneisenau: Blcher, who recognized his own shortcomings and the genius of his chief of
staff, relied implicitly on Gneisenaus judgment; and he was
not wholly joking whenwhile receiving an honorary
degree at Oxford after the warhe remarked: If I am to
become a doctor, you must at least make Gneisenau an
apothecary, for we two belong always together.8

frontage comparable to that assigned to a corps in World

War II. As the numbers and varieties of machines and
weapons have multiplied, so also have logistical requirements. The higher the echelon of command, the more the
general has to be responsible for, yet the less direct control
he has over subordinate forces. With the advent of
night-vision equipment and vehicles with longer ranges of
operations, combat operations can proceed unremittingly.
Command functions continue into a process that is progressive and continuous. While a commander is exercising military command, he is responsible without respite for the
effective and vigorous prosecution of the operations that will
achieve his objectives and contribute to the execution of the
overall mission. Obviously, no single man, unaided, can do
this properly. He must have, as we have seen, a close circle
of functional assistants.
But such a requirement is by no means new. From the
middle of the last century, the tasks of the general in command have been too numerous and too complex for any one
man to manage effectively, and the general staff system thus
gradually emerged. Helmuth von Moltke saw that the
Industrial Revolution had let loose the powers to mobilize,
equip, and direct enormous armies, and that this development demanded the creation of a complex and highly professional staff. In fact, The General Staff was essentially
intended to form a collective substitute for genius, which no
army can count on producing at need.2 The Army need not
aim so high as to produce geniuses, but [to produce] generals solidly grounded in the fundamentals of the profession.
With a wise selection of subordinates, the average general
can have a successful command. On the other hand, history
demonstrates conclusively that some of its most acclaimed
generals have failed when stripped of their right-hand men.
Superior generals surround themselves with staff officers
who complement them by covering their blind spots.
Consider the case of Napolon Bonaparte, widely acknowledged to be the most esteemed soldier who ever led troops
into battle. Some histories depict Marshal Berthier, the
emperors chief of staff, as nothing more than an exalted
clerk. Napolon from time to time spoke publicly about
Berthier in such pejorative language, but this probably was a
consequence of the emperors personal insecurity. Napolon
needed a chief of staff who would endure the waspish sting
of his burning intellect, and, yes, even occasional humiliation. The fact is, though, that Berthiers responsibilities were
heavy, to such a degree that he often worked 20-hour days.
He personally controlled the division of labor on Napolons
staff, all finances, and all appointments. Most important, he
supervised the issue of all of Napolons orders regarding
troop movements, operations, and artillery and engineer
employment.3
Napolon was an operational-level planner nonpareil.
Nonetheless, he needed someone with Berthiers energy,
dedication, and retentive capacity to translate broad instructions into polished orders fit to be delivered to the corps
commanders. Berthier had an exceptional talent for drafting
44

In contrast to Napolon and Berthier, in this case the chief

developed the plans and the commander executed them. The
Gneisenau-Blcher model of teamwork remains the supreme
example of its kind for the German army.

ill-conceived plan. It seems highly likely that had de

Guingand been present, he would have checked
Montgomerys essential rashness: There was . . . a fatal vacuum at this critical moment; and Bernard, as the one soldierapart from Brookewho possessed the undisputed
prestige and authority to scrap the project, tragically agreed
to undertake the raid.13
The qualities and talents necessary to be a good staff officer are far different from those necessary to be a good commander. Gen George Pattons career as well as any underscores this point. In the truest sense, Patton was a general
officer. He abhorred involvement with details; indeed, few
great commanders come to mind who felt otherwise. Patton
was temperamentally unsuited to the role of staff officer. In
his staff assignments he received poor efficiency reports for
his performance.14 The point is that at the operational level,
no matter how brilliant the commander, the most glittering
conception will go awry if it is not undergirded by the grinding hard work of his staff, which must churn out empirically
correct movement tables, time-distance calculations, and
logistical data.
Patton demanded that he be permitted to select his staff.
Although this mode of operation did not conform to the methods of the US Army replacement system, Patton, for whatever reason, got away with making these decisions himself.
When he arrived in England to assume command of Third
Army, he shocked the staff then in place by announcing that
he was moving them out to make room for his own men. All
those he brought on had served with him in North Africa and
Sicily; most had backgrounds in Pattons 2d Armored
Division. The man who held Pattons staff together, Brig Gen
Hugh Gaffey, has been termed a staff officer of genius.15
Gaffey held the post as Pattons chief of staff until the early
autumn of 1944, when Patton sent him down to command 4th
Armored Division, and eventually a corps. Gaffeys replacement was Brig Gen Hobart Gay, a longtime cavalry associate
of Patton. According to historian Hubert Essame, Both were
equally competent in the exercise of their intricate craft, . . .
both were in the mind of their master.16
As one would expect, Patton had an excellent relationship
with the staff, making it a personal policy never to interfere
with them on matters of minor detail. Like many outstanding
German commanders, but unlike some of his American
counterparts, Patton promoted an open and frank dialogue
between his staff and himself. They did not hesitate to disagree with him.
What was best for Third Army came first. George Patton
did not play hunches. He had the wisdom to rely on his staff
for sound advice, and they consistently gave it to him. His
assistant chief of staff (intelligence) (G-2), Col Oscar Koch,
for example, was felt by many to have the most penetrating
mind in the US Army in the intelligence field. Koch always
had available for Patton the best, most accurate intelligence
estimates to be found at any level of command. Pattons
famous 90-degree turn from the Saar bridgehead to the
Ardennes has received countless well-deserved accolades in

Montgomery, Patton, and Rommel

Soon after World War II, Field Marshal Bernard
Montgomery was asked to enumerate his requirements for a
good general. He listed nine items. The first was Have a
good chief of staff.9 And so he did, throughout the war. In
his own work, The Path to Leadership, Montgomery referred
to a good chief of staff as a pearl of very great price.10
As did the other generals mentioned thus far,
Montgomery chose the men who worked for him. He
insisted upon his right to install soldiers of his own choosing
in all key positions. Shortly after Dunkirk, Montgomery
described his plan to get the 3d Division on its feet. He called
together his staff and the senior officers in every unit in the
division and announced who was to take command in each
case. He personally and unilaterally, without waiting for War
Office approval, appointed all commanders down to battalion. In Nigel Hamiltons words, Montgomerys
essential drive was to get the right man for the right job. . . . [This
was,] together with his unique ability to abstract the essentials of any
problem, the touchstone of his genius as a commander. The conduct
of battle had borne out how dependent a commander is on his subordinate officers.11

Montgomery tried to hold on to the same staff as he progressed in rank through the war; in this endeavor he was reasonably successful. The mainstay of most general staffs, but
of Montgomerys in particular, was the chief of staff. The
field marshal was fortunate to have had Maj Gen Francis de
Guingand serve him in this capacity for the better part of the
war. De Guingands comments about his old boss are
intriguing in that they explode the usual public image of
Montgomery. According to de Guingand, Montgomery naturally tended to be rash and impetuous, not deliberate and
wholly rational. The main business of his chief of staff was
not to carry out detailed staff work or to make decisions in
the absence of the commander, but to keep Bernards two
great virtues [will and discipline] in tandem.12 When the
War Office thrust an unwanted chief on Montgomery, the
invariable result for the command was mediocrity or failure.
Instructively, the single greatest failure with which
Montgomery is associated, the Dieppe raid, occurred during
a period of flux in his staff. In March 1942 during his tenure
as commander, South-East Army, his chief of staff,
Brigadier John Sinclair, was transferred over Montgomerys
opposition. The commander then turned to the War Office
with a personal request for Simbo Simpson to replace
Sinclair. London refused him not only in this request, but
also in his bid for two other staff officers on whom he had
depended heavily in earlier assignments. At this time he was
denied the strong steadying influence of a de Guingand, and
the predictable outcome was a too-quick acceptance of an
45

operations. Montgomery termed these respites oases of

thought. He believed fervently that the senior combat leader
must allow a certain amount of time [each day] for quiet
thought and reflection.21 He habitually went to bed at 2130,
even amid tough battles. Patton, as well as Montgomery,
made time to reflect and think ahead. Each lived apart from
his main headquarters in the company of a small group of
officers and noncommissioned officers. Each let his chief of
staff handle the details, and never allowed himself to do so.22
Noting that he had seen too many of his peers collapse
under the stresses of high command, Sir William Slim insisted
that he have ample leisure in which to think, and unbroken
sleep.23 His permanent order was not to be disturbed unless
there arose a crisis no one else could handle. As with any other
aspect of combat, commanders must train in peacetime to do
well what war will demand. Gen Douglas MacArthur and Gen
George Marshall gave this personal training their devout
attention. While superintendent at West Point, MacArthur
often worked in his quarters study until 1200 or 1300 instead
of going to his office, where he might be distracted. Years
later, in the Philippines, he had a standing daily appointment
at a Manila movie house for a 2100 showing. He did not care
what was playing; he fell asleep as quickly as he sat down. He
found moviegoing a convenient way to unburden himself, to
undergo a daily psychic housecleaning.
Similarly, during his World War II years as Army chief of
staff, General Marshall usually left his office by 1500 each
day and rarely made any important decisions after that hour.
Fully aware that his decisions could make the difference
between life and death for large numbers of field combatants, he strove to be as mentally and emotionally prepared as
possible to make good decisions. In short, periods of rigorously protected solitude are enormously important to the
general in command. If the mind is the key to victory, the
general must tend and exercise his mind with a view to its
health just as he would his body. This recommendation is not
often heard in the US Army.
Combat orders express the commanders desires. History
and common sense demonstrate that clarity, conciseness,
and rapidity of dissemination are the measures of a good
order. At the operational level the general must possess the
power, derived from clarity of expression only, to knife
through thick layers of command to be understood. Superior
commanders at the operational level almost universally have
been guided by a concern and talent for clear literary exposition. This does not mean that they must be able to facilely
toss off arcane knowledge, but merely that they appreciate
the strength of words carefully and economically employed.
Even when the commander leaves it to principal staff assistants to actually write out the order, as Napolon did with
Berthier, he still must assure that such orders are prepared in
clear, simple language. Commanders who communicate well
orally and in writing are likely to have developed this ability
over long years of wide reading. Indeed, we may take as
axiomatic the proposition that great leaders are great readers.

history texts, but seldom are we reminded that at bottom the

action was made possible by a dutiful staff officer. It was
Koch who persuaded his commander before the fact that
planning should commence at once to deal with the situation
which would arise if the Germans staged an attack in the
Ardennes area.17 Patton was served equally well by other
members of the staff. His primary logistician, Col Walter J.
Muller, was known throughout the European Theater as the
best quartermaster since Moses.18
As for Field Marshal Erwin Rommels success in North
Africa, David Irving suggests six reasons. Of these, one pertained to his good equipment, two to Rommels individual
talents, and three took note of the high-quality personnel
who worked for him.19 Like Patton and Montgomery,
Rommel appropriated his Panzer army staff. Without
question, this was one of the most remarkably competent
staffs assembled in modern times. Siegfried Westphal, later
a general officer in command, was the operations officer and
a man for whom Rommel had the highest professional
respect. F. W. von Mellenthin, destined to wear two stars
before the wars end, ran the intelligence section. More than
anyone else, Alfred Gause, Rommels chief of staff, was in
the mind of the commander. He could anticipate with
near-perfect accuracy what Rommel needed and when he
needed it. Gause stayed on as Rommels chief from early
1941 until April 1944, at which time Rommels wife, as a
result of a petty domestic dispute with Gause and his wife,
prevailed upon her husband to release Gause. Rommel
selected Hans Speidel to succeed Gause. Observe that in this
instance, too, the commander chose a man whose temperament, intellect, and personality were nearly opposite his
own. The highly literate, sophisticated Speidel was a useful
complement to Rommels own one-track mind.20
Operational leadership is a corporate endeavor, not individual, and it requires full complementarity between the
commander and his staff. Sadly, as obvious as this point may
appear, it is ignored with frightening regularity by those
charged with preparing the US Armys official pronouncements on the subject of leadership.

The Concerns of War

Getting right down to the basics, what are the essential
things that the operational-level commander must cause to
happen if he is to be successful in war? They are two in number. First, information must be communicated from the commander to his instrument of war, that is, his troops and
weapons. Second, physical force must be applied against the
enemy by these instruments of war in a manner calculated to
produce the desired result. Let us discuss these two concerns
in order.
Before a general can begin to communicate the wherewithal to win victories, he must prepare himself for the task.
One of the most difficult parts of such preparation, especially in combat, is to find time to think problems through
fully in order to make sound decisions and to plan future
46

Commanders at all levels had to act more on their own; they were
given greater latitude to work out their own plans to achieve what
they knew was the Army commanders intention. In time they developed to a marked degree the flexibility of mind and a firmness of
decision that enabled them to act swiftly to take advantage of sudden information or changing circumstances without reference to
their superiors. . . . This acting without orders, in anticipation of
orders, or without waiting for approval, yet always within the overall intention, must become second nature . . . and must go down to
the smallest units.29

Conciseness and rapidity of dissemination go hand in

hand. More often than not, the unit that acts first wins. This
means that time and the saving of it should be at the core of
the orders-generating process. Failure in timely issuance of
orders is a cardinal error. Fortunately, the leader may avoid
this error by following the principle that all orders must be
as brief and simple as possible.
Many World War II commanders issued oral orders
exclusively. Gen Heinz Gaedcke, a combat commander with
considerable experience on the Russian front, followed the
practice of most German generals in giving oral orders. In
his opinion, To actually operate using formal written orders
would have been far too slow. Going through the staff mill,
correcting, rewriting, and reproducing in order to put out a
written order would have meant we would have been too late
with every attack we ever attempted.24 General Gaedcke
added that while serving in the postwar German army, he
pulled out of the archives some of his orders from the first
Russian campaign. He remarked on this occasion that the
new generation of officers probably would find inconceivable the running of a field army with such a small staff and
on the basis of such simple, brief instructions: It was a most
peculiar feeling to see the orders, all very simple, that I had
written in pencil so that the rain wouldnt smear themand
each had the radio operators stamp to confirm that they had
been transmitted.25
The Sixth Army commander, Gen Hermann Balck, whom
General Gaedcke served for a time as chief of staff, declared
that he could present a five-minute oral order which would
last a good commander eight days.26 Asked after the war
about his technique for giving orders, General Balck replied:
Even my largest and most important operations orders were
[oral]. After all, there wasnt any need for written orders. As
division commander, I forbade the use of written orders
within my division.27
The clever commander will discover many ways to reduce
the time it takes to communicate direct, unambiguous instructions to his subordinates. Working toward this goal should be
a main objective of the operational-echelon commander.
Ironically, one of the toughest tests facing the commander
is deciding when not to communicate, that is, in deciding
when to control and when not to. If successful fighting units
of the twentieth century have proved anything, it is that operations must be decentralized to the lowest level possible.
Because the operational commander can not do everything
himself (in fact, he rarely will control combat units directly),
he must delegate extensively. Commanders might profit
from the example of Gen Ulysses S. Grant, who pledged
never to do himself that which someone else could do as well
or better. He trusted subordinates thoroughly, giving only
general directions, not hampering them with petty instructions.28 Sir William Slim spoke for a legion of successful
senior commanders when he summarized the compelling
case for decentralization:

By decentralizing control to low tactical echelons, the

operational commander implicitly places heavier weight on
his overall intent and lighter weight on detailed orders, thus
speeding up the processes of information flow and decision
making. The benefits of decentralization are easy to identify.
Nonetheless, many in the US Army remain uncomfortable
with the practice of issuing mission orders and allowing subordinates broad decision authority within the context of the
commanders intent. Among many explanations for this
uneasiness, a significant one involves the poor fit of decentralized control with present leadership doctrine. By spotlighting the commander, by exalting his image to the neglect
of the follower, the Army subtly and unwittingly has engendered the erroneous notion that the wheel of command will
turn only on the strength of the commander.
The final facet of the communication function with which
the operational-level commander must be ready to cope is
uncertainty, ambiguity, or noise (Clausewitzs friction).
It is astonishing that anyone can perform well as a general in
wartime command. Crucial decisions have to be made under
conditions of enormous stress, when actual noise, fatigue,
lack of sleep, poor food, and grinding responsibility add their
quotas to the ever-present threat of total annihilation.30
Even during the Iranian rescue mission, when some of these
conditions did not exist, the sources of friction were plentiful and potent. The Holloway panel investigating the failure
of the mission concluded that the basic weakness displayed
by [the joint task force commanders] staff was that his
planners were not sufficiently sensitive to those areas of
great uncertainty that might have had a shattering impact on
the rescue mission.31 The goal is to be like Grant, for
whom confusion had no terror.32
Gen Archibald Wavell claimed that the first essential of a
general is robustness, which he defined as the ability to
stand the shocks of war.33 The general, Wavell wrote, will
constantly be at the mercy of unreliable information, uncertain factors, and unexpected strains. In order to cope in this
environment, then, all material of war, including the general, must have a certain solidity, a high margin over the normal breaking strain.34 He can develop this toughness only
by spending most of his peacetime training in the art and science of war craft. One cannot expect to play a rough game
without getting dirty. The Germans played many rough and
dirty games during the interwar years, and as a result were
generally better prepared than the Allies. In any event, the
friction of war, producing a surfeit of noise and a welter of
incomplete, erroneous, or conflicting data, stresses to the
47

the Zagros Mountains. Fourth, a secure enclave would be

available from which to launch attacks to the northwest
should the NCA subsequently decide upon a more ambitious
and aggressive course.
The SAMS students decision is not offered as an
approved solution. It did not even provide for securing the
Iranian oil fields, at least not initially. Rather, it is used to
illustrate the importance of establishing the ends of the campaign. Shortly after the SAMS exercise, the students visited
each of the operational-level headquarters actually assigned
a comparable mission. Ominously, when questioned about
the ends they hoped to achieve, four headquarters responded
with four different answers. The reason for their differences
was that they had never gotten together to agree on ends
before allocating means and drawing up plans.
After he decides the end he seeks, the next question the
commander must confront is How do I sequence the actions
of the command to produce the desired conclusion to the
conflict? The short answer is that he must think through a
series of battles and major operations that will constitute the
campaign. He must weigh probabilities and risks and the
challenges of battle management. This is anticipation. Good
intelligence analyses will help him immensely, as will an
in-depth knowledge of the enemy and his psychological predispositions. Despite the imponderables, he must fashion his
thoughts into a convincing, coherent outline for a campaign
plan. He presents the outline, representing his vision of how
the campaign is to unfold, to the staff for refinement.
Although the commander need not be perfectly prescient,
it helps immeasurably if his vision matches reality with reasonable fidelity. Planning at the operational level is tougher
than at the tactical level because there is a narrower margin
for error. The commander had better make the right decisions most of the time and on the big issues because once
large formations are set in motion, it is nearly impossible to
cause them to halt or change directions quickly. As Col
Wallace Franz has written: Operational (large) units, once
set in motion, do not conform readily to later modifications.
There must be the fullest realization that any adaptation of
means cannot be immediate and instantaneous.35
Like a member of a football kickoff team, the forces
being employed at the operational level must move downfield at top speed with controlled fury. While charging hard,
and under the threat of being knocked off his feet from multiple directions, each player must be capable of moving rapidly out of his assigned lane of responsibility if conditions
change radically; for example, if the returner has run past
him and is going toward the other side of the field. To carry
the analogy a step further, if all has gone well for the kickoff
team, they will have disrupted the oppositions timing by
clogging all 11 potential running lanes. When this situation
develops, the oppositions set play collapses and the runner
must freelance. If my team is much smaller than the opponents, I have to rely on quickness, rapid thinking,
hit-and-run tactics, and deceptive moves (all of which

uttermost a commanders ability to keep his thoughts

focused and his communications selective and germane.

Delivering Force on the Objective

After communications, the next fundamental concern in
war fighting involves bringing armed force effectively to
bear upon the enemy. Force will be applied most effectively
if the operational-level commander ascertains, preferably
before hostilities begin, the condition he wants to obtain at
the end of the conflict. Only if he understands the end he
seeks will he be able to prepare a clear statement of intent.
No coherent campaign is possible without a lucid vision of
how it should conclude. Evidence suggests that planners
sometimes do not tend to this crucial first decision.
Students in the School of Advanced Military Studies
(SAMS) at Fort Leavenworth [Kansas] recently participated
in an eight-day Southwest Asia war game. The pertinent part
of the scenario portrayed a takeover by anti-American rebel
forces of several key cities in Iran, mostly in the southern part
of the country. The rebels threatened to seize the Persian Gulf
ports, and thereby shut down oil cargo out of the Persian
Gulf. Twenty-three Soviet divisions from three fronts entered
Iran in support of the rebels. In response to the threat to its
national interests as expressed by the Carter Doctrine, the
United States deployed a joint task force to assist the loyalist
Iranian forces. Ground forces consisted of roughly five and
one-half Army divisions under the control of a field army
headquarters plus one Marine amphibious force.
SAMS students decided early in the planning that their
mission, to defeat rebel and Soviet forces in Iran and to
facilitate the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf, needed clarification. What was the defeat criterion? Restore Irans
national borders? Destroy all Soviet and rebel forces within
the borders of Iran? Or should they emphasize the second
part of the mission statement, to facilitate the Wests and
Japans access to Persian Gulf oil? Answers to such questions make a mighty difference. In the absence of a national
command authorities (NCA)-player cell, the students judged
that NCA intent was to optimize chances for the uninterrupted flow of oil, consistent with means. With this understanding, they concentrated on securing the vital Gulf ports
of Chah Bahar, Bushehr, and Bandar Abbas. The ground
commander (in this exercise, the notional US Ninth Army
commander) determined that he would attempt to drive out,
or prevent from entering, any enemy forces in an area centered on Bandar Abbas and circumscribed by an arc running
roughly through Shiraz, Kerman, and Bam, some 250 miles
away. This decision made sense in four important respects.
First, in the ground commanders opinion, the US force was
too small to fight much-superior enemy forces across the
vast entirety of Iran itself. Second, with almost no infrastructure from which to establish supply operations, to move
farther than 250 miles inland would have been logistically
unsupportable. Third, this course of action permitted
friendly forces to exploit the excellent defensible terrain of
48

together define AirLand Battle doctrines agility) to give

me the advantage I want.
But all the agility in the world will not be sufficient to
guarantee victory. In the real world, it is not unusual for the
commanders ideal operational end to exceed his actual
operational resources. And it is in recognizing this disconnect that the commanders art must be most acute.
The eighteenth-century English neoclassicists believed
that the antithetical forces of reason and passion struggled
for possession of a mans personality. On the actual battlefield the same struggle constantly is being enacted in the
mind of the commander. Commanders are sorely tempted to
allow emotion to cloud good judgment in decision making.
The art lies in realizing when and to what extent to let emotions intervene, to sense when it is proper to discard reason
and turn to passion, to let the heart rule the head. Stated differently, the internal conflict is between will and judgment.
The force of will usually counsels can to the commander
while judgment may signal a cannot.
Nearly every treatise on generalship speaks of the tremendous importance of the will to prevail. The truth of this
observation is obvious. The flip side of tenacity, though, is
obstinacy. More serious lapses of generalship may have
occurred because of a failure to distinguish between tenacity
and obstinacy than for any other reason. The general must
ever be conscious of the true limitations and capabilities of
his forces. As S. L. A. Marshall rightly claims:

Leadership in War: Summing Up

Doctrine on leadership ought to talk about leadership in
war. This is not the case with present manuals. Field
Manuals 22-100 and 22-999 speak mostly about personal
attributes desirable in a leader. The problem with so much
emphasis on personal qualities is that even if the key ones
could be identified, a leader probably cannot adhere to them
all at the same time or all the time. Let us also recall that
those commonly acclaimed as great leaders are not necessarily good men. It is possible to be morally blemished and
still be a highly effective combat commander.
There is no simple set of rules by which to establish the
pillars of generalship. One rule in any set, though, is that
the good general must be adept at the art of choosing competent and compatible subordinates, especially his chief of
staff. The Army can modify its personnel system to permit
senior commanders to select their own staffs. Surely the
devising of such a system is within mans ingenuity. This
is a must-do requirement if the Army is serious about
developing war craft as something distinct from witchcraft.
Every superior combat commander in modern times has
relied on the brilliant staff work of men he has handpicked
to assist him. Surely there is a lesson in this observation.
Chief executive officers of all large corporations choose
their own principal subordinates. No university president in
his right mind would attempt to assign the nine assistants to
the head football coach, nor for that matter, would any head
coach worth his salt accept such a proposition. The quality
of the great majority of todays Army officers is superb.
The issue, then, is not so much whether competent officers
will surround the senior commander, but whether he will
have officers around him who best complement him. Under
the Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986,
commanders in chief (CINC) of unified and specified commands will have veto authority over officers nominated for
assignment to their staffs. This is a step in the right direction.
Having selected an able staff, the commanding general in
combat must then look to his communicating. He should pay
special attention to carving out of his schedule time to think;
to issuing simple, unambiguous orders; to decentralizing control to the lowest levels possible; and to developing a tolerance
for the uncertain and the unexpected. With respect to the
delivery of force, the operational-level commander must furnish a clear-sighted vision of the conditions he wants to obtain
at the conclusion of the campaign. Based upon an accurate
understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the forces
he commands, he must conjure a sequence of actions that will
bring to fruition the desired outcome. Finally, the commander
must be able to discern with certain knowledge the fine distinctions between tenacity and obstinacy.
In the final analysis, US Army operational-level leadership doctrine must step away from preachments on the Boy
Scout virtues writ large, and toward the genuine requirements of wartime command. It must also abandon the idea

The will does not operate in a vacuum. It cannot be imposed successfully if it runs counter to reason. Things are not done in war primarily because a man wills it; they are done because they are
do-able. The limits for the commander in battle are defined by the
general circumstances. What he asks of his men must be consistent
with the possibilities of the situation.36

The way a general understands what his forces can or

cannot do is through what Sir John Hackett terms the principle of total engagement. By this he means that the general
somehow completely fuses his own identity with the corporate whole of his men. He reaches this state by being a participant in combat, not merely a prompter. In discussing the
1915 Turkish siege of British forces in Kut, India, Norman
Dixon furnishes an example of a general who was a
prompter and no more. The British commander, Major
General Townshend, stayed apart from his soldiers. He had
no sense of the true condition of his four weak brigades. As
a consequence, his reports lied regarding casualties, food
supplies, medical aid, and estimates of Turkish strength.37
In all, some 43,000 British soldiers needlessly became casualties because their commander lost all physical and emotional contact with his fighting troops. Only when the commander achieves a total moral fusion with his troops will he
be able to sense whether they are being asked to do the
impossible.
49

15. Ibid., 121.

16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., 216, 225.
18. Ibid., 122.
19. David Irving, The Trail of the Fox (New York: Avon Books, 1978),
17071.
20. Ibid., 406.
21. Montgomery, 24950.
22. Essame, 40.
23. William Slim, Defeat into Victory (London: Cassell, 1956), 213.
24. Translation of taped conversation with Lt Gen Heinz Gaedcke,
Battelle Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio, 1979, 38.
25. Ibid., 37.
26. Translation of taped conversation with Gen Hermann Balck,
Battelle Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio, 1979, 26.
27. Ibid., 25.
28. J. F. C. Fuller, Grant and Lee (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University
Press, 1957), 74.
29. Slim, 54142.
30. Norman Dixon, On the Psychology of Military Incompetence (New
York: Basic Books, 1976), 32.
31. Paul B. Ryan, The Iranian Rescue Mission (Annapolis, Md.: Naval
Institute Press, 1985), 76.
32. Fuller, 75.
33. Archibald Wavell, Generals and Generalship (New York:
Macmillan Publishing Co., 1941). Reprinted with other works in US Army
War Colleges Art of War Colloquium series, December 1983.
34. Ibid., 42.
35. Wallace Franz, Maneuver: The Dynamic Element of Combat,
Military Review 63 (May 1983): 5.
36. S. L. A. Marshall, Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle
Command in Future War (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith Pub. Inc., 1978),
175.
37. Dixon, 9599.

that the general should and can master all the skills practiced
by those subordinate to him; that time has long since passed.
Instead, he should spend his precious time preparing to make
the kinds of decisions war will require him to make, thereby
strengthening the pillars of his generalship against the day
they must bear the awful weight of war.

Notes
1. Gregory Fontenot, The Promise of Cobra: The Reality of
Manchuria, Military Review 65 (September 1985): 54. Fontenot credits Lt
Col Harold R. Winton for this definition of the operational level of war.
2. B. H. Liddell, The German Generals Talk (New York: William
Morrow & Co., 1948), 19.
3. David Chandler, The Campaign of Napoleon (New York: Macmillan
Publishing Co., Inc., 1966), 373.
4. Ibid., 56.
5. Ibid., 1021.
6. Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Art of War in the Age of Napoleon
(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1980), 210.
7. Ibid., 192.
8. Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army (London:
Oxford University Press, 1955), 6263.
9. Harvey DeWeerd, Great Soldiers of the Second World War (London:
R. Hale, 1946), 117.
10. Bernard L. Montgomery, The Path to Leadership (New York:
Putnam Publications Group, 1961), 247.
11. Nigel Hamilton, Monty: The Making of a General, 18871942
(New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1974), 40506.
12. Ibid., 553.
13. Ibid.
14. Hubert Essame, Patton: A Study in Command (New York: Charles
Scribner & Sons, 1974), 2324.

50